Beyond Sanctorum

Recording and production

The band signed a contract with Active Records after the deal with previous label Deaf Records was signed only for one album and relations between band and label [Deaf] weren't positive. Therion began to record a second full-length album in The Montezuma Studio in 1991. Before the recordings started bass guitar player Erik Gustafsson decided to leave the band in order to return home to the U.S., but Therion continued as a trio with Peter Hansson, Oskar Forss and Christofer Johnsson filling in on bass guitar.

Songs, lyrical themes and influences

In Beyond Sanctorum Therion began progressively including classical and other elements to their sound. The record shows a more experimental edge to the death metal music, with keyboard instruments, clean male & female vocalists used sparingly, and also some Persian folk music tunes. However, the riffing sections can be compared to most Stockholm death metal (see Scandinavian death metal) bands with power chord riffing in classical harmonic sense, its melodiousness, and lead riffing focusing on melodies. Overall structuring of narration and music dynamics is quite similar to European death metal conventions. The sound is comparable to the band's earlier productions, having typical sound for Sunlight studios.

The lyrical content had changed into an occult theme. Therion began being inspired by H. P. Lovecraft writings. The song title "Cthulhu" refers to Lovecraft's fictional deity Cthulhu that appears in Cthulhu Mythos.

2000 re-release album contains original remastered songs, and four bonus demo songs.

Tour

After recording album, Therion started to play their first live shows in central Europe, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium although simultaneously band ran into a few personnel problems. Forss decided to leave the band, Hansson quit the band after health problems. The shows were played using a new line-up. Piotr Wawrzeniuk, from the band Carbonized in which Johnsson also played, took up drumming duties. The guitar was taken up by Magnus Barthelsson, an old school friend of Johnsson's, while Andreas Wahl took up the bass.

Reception

Beyond Sanctorum received many good opinions being acclaimed as genius melodic death metal and classic of death metal. It has received 3 of 5 rating by Allmusic, and 3.66 of 5 by Rate Your Music community being number 201 in its 1992 ranking.

Track listing

1. "Future Consciousness" – 5:00
2. "Pandemonic Outbreak" – 4:21
3. "Cthulhu" – 6:12
4. "Symphony of the Dead" – 6:49
5. "Beyond Sanctorum" – 2:36
6. "Enter the Depths of Eternal Darkness" – 4:46
7. "Illusions of Life" – 3:20
8. "The Way" – 11:06
9. "Paths" – 2:03
10. "Tyrants of the Damned" – 3:43

Re-release

2000 re-release version contains following bonus demo version tracks:

1. "Cthulhu" (demo version) – 6:10
2. "Future Consciousness" (demo version) – 5:07
3. "Symphony of the Dead" (demo version) – 6:13
4. "Beyond Sanctorum" (demo version) – 2:29

Personnel